New academy schools fuel education row

Ten new academy schools, including one backed by the former boss of Saga holidays and another by an evangelical Christian group linked to the teaching of creationism, will open this week as the government presses ahead with its most radical reform of the state school system.

The expansion - the largest since the first academy opened in 2002 - means there are 27 schools open with 30 more in the pipeline.

The programme is one of the government's most divisive proposals for reforming the school system. Private sponsors give a maximum of £2m in return for a large degree of control over the school's curriculum, ethos and staffing.

Among the academies opening this term is the Marlowe Academy in Ramsgate, Kent, which is sponsored by millionaire local businessman Roger de Haan - former owner of Saga Holidays.

It will replace the Ramsgate school which until 2003 was the worst-performing secondary in the country.

It will be the first academy in Kent, which is the largest local education authority in England and has a large number of grammar schools as it retains the 11-plus system.

The new academy's principal, Ian Johnson, said: "We will be the only secondary school in Kent that does not have to follow the national curriculum. That will give us a lot of freedom and we will be challenging convention.

"It is tremendously exciting and part of the wider programme to regenerate Ramsgate. Clearly we will be going out on a limb but we will be the only truly comprehensive school in the area."

The Emmanuel Schools Foundation, an evangelical Christian group which has been linked to the teaching creationism at Emmanuel College in Gateshead, is sponsoring the Trinity Academy in Doncaster.

Four out of the 10 new schools opening this week are backed by Christian organisations and almost half of those under development are due to be sponsored by religious groups of some sort.

Yesterday campaigners warned that academies were being used as "trojan horses" by some Christians.

Keith Porteous Wood, director of the National Secular Society, said: "Given that only 7% of the population are in church on any given Sunday this is a disproportionately high number of academies. Religious organisations are seeing the captive audience that academies provide as being their best, and sometimes only, chance of survival."

The academy programme has been fraught with controversy since it was launched. A select committee report this year called on ministers to scale down the scheme until it had been properly tested. The first phase of a confidential government assessment, obtained by the Guardian, warned that academies could create two-tier education based on social class.

The second part of the report, published in June, said that academies had largely won the support of pupils and parents, although they still faced "significant problems", including widespread bullying and inappropriate buildings.

But the government insists that the schools are improving the standard of education in some of the most deprived areas of the country.

The schools minister, Lord Adonis, cited the rise in the proportion of pupils getting the benchmark A*-C grades at GCSE at 10 of the 14 flagship schools as evidence that they were reversing years of underachievement.

Last week it emerged that Sir Cyril Taylor, the former Tory education adviser, is to take a lead role in the academy programme. Since 1997 Sir Cyril has been an education adviser and has overseen the expansion of specialist schools.

It is thought he will work alongside the Academy Sponsors Trust in an attempt to help the government reach its 2010 target.

Trailblazers

Academy of St Francis of Assisi, Liverpool, sponsor: the (Church of England)Diocese of Liverpool and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool

Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College Academy, Lewisham: the Haberdashers' Livery Company